Never alienate your target audience.
That should be rule #1 no matter what you do. Whether you’re an entertainer, a server at a restaurant or a PR person, keeping good relations with the people in your direct sphere is incredibly important.
Jim Redner, principal at The Redner Group, broke this rule with a tweet a few days ago when expressing displeasure at some negative reviews of the first-person shooter Duke Nukem Forever, which he was repping for 2K games.
As a direct result of his tweet, he lost his client, 2K.
While I do respect that Redner apologized, he still maintained, in a missive published on Wired.com, and excerpted by Mashable’s Brenna Ehrlich that, “It is my opinion that when someone exceeds their journalistic integrity and publishes a scathing, derogatory, uncalled-for review, I have the right to question it.”
Any PR or Marketing professional who has worked on a reviews program would be inclined to agree. But, the manner in which he questioned (vaguely and in the public forum of Twitter), is where he went wrong.
In Ehrlich’s excellent piece, she went through a list of other recent social media missteps that have led to the loss of a job or, in my favorite case -- the infamous “Cisco Fatty” incident -- the rescinding of a job offer.
Today, I’m going to look at what I think Redner did right, and where he made some mistakes and see what we can learn from it. You know, Monday-morning public relationing. For another instance of Sterling using PR mistakes for lessons, check out our own Jay Nichols and Kevin Pedraja talking about the recent PR scandal involving Facebook and Google.
What He Did Right
1. Accepted responsibility
Redner immediately accepted responsibility for his behavior, pointed out that he was tired at the end of a long day and asked forgiveness. He was honest, straightforward and apologetic – the best way to act in a tough situation of your own making.
2. Explained his behavior
The 5-page article he published on Wired.com was many things - brief was not one of them. However, by going into excruciating detail, Redner shared his thinking, his story and his reasoning in a way that made sense of the situation as best he could. It was also a great place to tell his story – a nice “get” for a less-than-stellar piece of news.
3. Apologizing
While Redner believed his thinking was right, he understood that his actions were not. Quickly apologizing didn’t save him from losing his client, but it may have saved him from having to switch careers.
What He Did Wrong
1. Used Twitter to vent
As displayed in numerous recent incidents, using a public forum like Twitter to vent your frustrations (or in some political cases, share more than you should) is probably not a good idea. Twitter is great for a lot of reasons, but it is not your best forum for sharing your frustrations, anger or deepest, darkest secrets with entire World Wide Web.
2. Made “Prioritization” seem like “Blacklisting”
Reporters choose not to write. If a PR person only has a limited number of products for review, they’re going to send those review units to the reporters most likely to give it a good review. That’s reasonable. Framing it like blacklisting is not, and it makes the whole ‘selection process’ seem much more sinister than it actually is.
3. Took things personally
A good PR rep will care when their client gets a bad product review. A great PR rep will try to make it better in any way they can. What they won’t do is blast the reviewer, making the situation worse. Taking it personally won’t solve anything. In fact, it will almost always make the situation worse.
I’m sure Jim Redner is good at his job. He was doing his best for a client and got frustrated. This is the danger of our “always-on” world. Perhaps the biggest takeaway from all of this? When you’re angry, for any reason: step away from the keyboard. Give yourself five minutes to clear your head. This will undoubtedly be the best course of action – regardless of the situation.
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